The structure of psyche in A Course in Miracles






Monday, January 18, 2010 — 8 pm EST
Live online discussion on ACIM Chat


Class notes

In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level, which properly consists ONLY of the miracle ability ... and a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the unconscious and the superconscious. These are the sources of the impulses it receives. Consciousness is thus the level of perception, but NOT of knowledge. Again, to PERCEIVE is NOT to know.

Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into himself. He became a PERCEIVER rather than a creator in the true sense. Consciousness is ... the domain of the ego. ... the ego is NOT the self... AND A crucial source of the ego's off-balance state is its lack of discrimination between impulses from God and from the body.

Everything that man creates has energy because, like the Creation of God, they (it) come FROM energy... Miscreation is still a genuine creative act ... To deny this is merely the previously mentioned fallacy of depreciation. AND .the individual.BELIEVES in what he has created in his unconscious.

The ability to perceive made the body [a means to see separate selves] possible... The superconscious, which KNOWS, could not be reconciled with this loss of power, because it was incapable of darkness [LIMITED ability to see]. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind, and entirely inaccessible to the body. [The superconscious cannot limit its Vision of the whole to the limited vision of the physical eye.]

Miracles come from the subconscious (below conscious) level. Revelations come from the above conscious level. The conscious level is in between and reacts to either sub- or super-conscious impulses in varying ratios. AND ...every level has a creative potential...

The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. AND The truth is there ARE no idle thoughts. ALL thinking produces form at some level.

Perception ALWAYS involves some misuse of will, because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the Separation it willed to perceive [i.e., NOT know = hide]. Until it chose to do this, it willed only to know. Afterwards, it had to will ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity IS clear perception.

[Knowledge] can always be REMEMBERED. This is not a literal remembering as much as a re-membering.

INSTRUCTIONS: The purpose of this course is integration.

The levels which man created by the Separation are disastrous. They cannot BUT conflict. ...one is essentially meaningless to another... They were conflict-prone by definition, because they wanted different things and obeyed different principles [uncertainty of values created a hierarchy of needs = Maslow].

Separation from God is the only lack he really needs to correct. But his Separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth, and thus perceived himself as lacking. The concept of ANY sort of need HIERARCHY arose because, having made this fundamental error [that he was lacking in ANY way], he had already fragmented himself into levels with DIFFERENT needs. As he integrates, HE becomes one, and his ONE need becomes one accordingly. Only the fragmented can be confused about this.

...nothing is difficult that is WHOLLY DESIRED. To desire wholly is to CREATE... AND ...unified perception ...parallels God's knowing.

The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, but only as an indication that immediate correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.

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